Women, Islam, and...Foreign Policy?

by AZMAT ZAHRA KHAN

Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East (CFR/Random House), by Isobel Coleman

[ IDÉ ] Early July pulsed with reports of Iranian mother Sakineh Ashtiani's impending execution, which, at the time, was to be carried out by stoning. Her alleged crime was zina, adultery or fornication, a moral transgression for which more women are punished than men. Because stoning is defended on religious grounds (in Articles 86 and 105 of the Iranian penal code), its champions afford themselves the authority to acquiesce rarely, if ever, to external demands for clemency. So while diplomatic pressure, international offers of asylum, and a Western media push constitute the most visible efforts to "free Sakineh," a new book suggests that "Islamic feminists," or individuals working within Islamic discourse to promote women's empowerment, constitute a more potent activism over the long term.

In Paradise Beneath Her Feet, Council on Foreign Relations expert Isobel Coleman makes the case that the emerging Islamic feminist movement is the most effective way to empower women in the "greater Middle East," a region that includes Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, and that she believes will likely determine the stability of our world. It is in these countries that she spent the last decade researching and profiling the work of women, and even some men, who are "contesting the self-appropriated right of conservative religious leaders to interpret Islam." Islamic feminism, she argues, holds special credibility and grassroots appeal, and can ultimately benefit the stability and prosperity of the countries of the greater Middle East, as well as their relationships with the West.

The post-9/11 discourse on Islam, gender, and the so-called Muslim world has been peppered with writings that range from oversimplified preoccupations with the veil to convoluted academic analysis of Islamic laws and human rights. The task of navigating through this unrelentingly politicized literary landscape for insights that are both nuanced and readily comprehensible is daunting.

Paradise can function as both a well-researched, Cliffs Notes-like guide for those who seek to learn about some of the complex histories and debates on women's rights and Islam, and as a resource that fleshes out the potential for religious gender-based movements to generate broad development in Muslim-majority societies.

There are serious implications to each of these functions. Perhaps most importantly, the relationship Coleman touts between women's development and U.S. foreign policy goals, specifically in curbing extremism, requires a careful read that considers the associated practical and ethical challenges.

The Contexts for Islamic Feminism

One of the most compelling aspects of Paradise is its well-researched overview of Islamic feminism's genesis in multiple contexts. Coleman describes it as a nascent movement that emerged in reaction to contemporary Islamism (Ziba Mir-Hosseini calls it "the unwanted child of political Islam"), as well as the failures of secular reform efforts.

She delves into turbulent colonial histories and the rise of Islamism, particularly how the conflict between secularists and Islamist leaders such as Hassan al-Banna of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Abul Ala Maududi of India's Jamaat-e-Islami made the bodies of women its battlegrounds through issues like female dress and gender segregation. Pivotal to that conflict, Coleman says, was the Islamist realization that "linking feminism with the heresy of the West is good politics, and helps turn patriarchy into patriotism." In part, Islamic feminism developed as a religious response to those patriarchies. It also stemmed from the dual tensions, which Coleman chronicles excellently, of secular feminists' antipathy for women's religious activism, and the equally passionate disdain among some in the postcolonial world for Western feminist frameworks that long projected Third World women's inferiority.

Islamic feminism's proponents contend that it is deeply rooted in historical Islamic tradition. The epistemology behind this is a quest for reinterpretation, often through ijtihad,a historical practice that Coleman defines as "the process of arriving at new interpretations of Islamic law through critical reasoning." Some of the most well-known Islamic feminists, for example Asma Barlas and Amina Wadud, are those who engage with the Qu'ran to argue that its original meaning is egalitarian and antipatriarchal.

But hermeneutics is only one aspect of Islamic feminism, and Coleman is sharp to recognize that. Much of this book features the labors of activists who are not scholars, but embody the goals of Islamic feminism in other ways.

Islamic Feminism, Embodied

Paradise is exactly that for those afflicted with wanderlust. With every chapter and, at times, with every turn of the page, Coleman is in a new country documenting a dizzying array of activist movements. Her study spans Faezeh Hashemi's quest to launch the first ever Islamic women's games in Tehran, a mission to get Afghan clerics to sign onto women's educational programs, advocacy against Article 41 of the Iraqi constitution, the Meydaan Organization's Campaign to Stop Stoning Forever in Iran, Mukhtaran Mai's fight against repressive feudal laws in Pakistan, and the reforms of women preachers in Morocco.

As a result, Coleman's view of "Islamic feminism" is more encompassing than prevailing conceptions, which center chiefly on the reinterpretation of Islamic jurisprudence relating to family law issues like divorce, rape, and adultery. Coleman's broader definition is welcome insofar as it highlights efforts that might otherwise be overlooked: projects to alleviate poverty, the grassroots work by women without elite Islamic educations, NGO development work, the valuable roles men are playing, and other activisms that challenge overarching structural inequalities.

But this inclusiveness can also obfuscate what exactly it takes to be an Islamic feminist. Some of the women and men Coleman profiles are less than revolutionary, and many of them would disagree with one another's approaches to gender justice. Coleman depicts some of these disagreements, particularly the conflict between those who identify themselves as "Muslim feminists" and "Islamic feminists," and those who shun the term altogether. In doing so, she illustrates that the promotion of women's rights through Islam is anything but monolithic, and should be considered with all of its complexities, even its contradictions.

Part of what makes many of these activists so compelling is their grassroots appeal. Coleman argues that one of Islamic feminism's greatest strengths, particularly in comparison with secular feminism, is its ability to mobilize women across classes. Sakena Yacoobi, the founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), which provides health and educational services to more than 350,000 women, is a prime example. "We call it a human rights workshop, but what we are really teaching is the Qu'ran," she tells Coleman. The class Yacoobi leads uses standard curriculum developed by the Women's Learning Partnership, which she has adapted for Afghan women on the village level.

Also fascinating is Coleman's exploration of the opportunities offered by new media to promote gender justice, especially as a result of greater access to satellite television. She describes how Egyptian talk show host Heba Kotb has brought discussions of sexuality to screens across the Arab world and how the male scholar Javed Ahmad Ghambidi has advocated against the harsh punishments of the Hudood Ordinance on Geo Television in Pakistan. Despite the compelling examples Coleman highlights, it should be noted that new media can offer an equally powerful platform to anti-women religious fundamentalists.

In each country chapter, Coleman also digs into the history of women's activism and some of the figures that have inspired it. One of the most affecting portions of the book is the beginning of the chapter on Iraq, in which she relates the fiery, yet mournful tale of Zainab bint Ali, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. The rest of the chapter, however, glosses over some of the most significant issues in the country's more recent history. Coleman writes about how the devastation of the Iraqi infrastructure that resulted from the U.S. invasion has disparately affected women, but she avoids addressing the uncomfortable argument that U.S. economic policy toward and involvement in Iraq over the years has brought extraordinary challenges for Iraqi women. Furthermore, the short chapter does not adequately capture the rich variety of local activisms that have emerged in response. What Kind of Liberation? by Najde Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt is one work that provides deeper insight into what is happening in Iraq today.

In general, Coleman's profiles are very engrossing, at times because they are tragic and at others because they are funny (her conversations with "Soheila" in Iran are some of the best). Though much of the book is simply devoted to sharing news of their work, the author's broader, more ambitious goal is to flesh out how they fit into a foreign policy and development agenda.

The Foreign Policy Lens

Although Coleman does briefly profile activists in countries like Malaysia and Morocco, the geographical focus of Paradise mirrors U.S. foreign policy priorities: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. To some, the deliberate inclusion of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Middle East may seem curious, perhaps even imprecise, but it is very telling of the book's ambitions and intended audience.

These five countries are repeatedly referred to as the "greater Middle East," U.S. foreign policy nomenclature popularized (and politicized) in 2004 via reform initiatives targeted to combat Islamic extremism through the development, and especially the democratization, of Muslim-majority countries. Today, the "greater Middle East" is employed to denote both Washington's Middle East and "AfPak" priorities. For Coleman, the broader Middle East represents the "strategic crescent" in which some of the world's most critical conflicts will likely play out.

Focusing on the greater Middle East is a calculated part of Coleman's larger project to demonstrate a link between gender and foreign policy. She specifically makes the case that the world has a stake in Islamic feminism, writing that women's struggle for justice

This much-trumpeted relationship between women's development and reducing Islamic extremism in policy discourse has been contested by some feminist scholars and undercut by examples of popular women's religious movements that are neither liberal nor rights-based. Works like Saba Mahmood's The Politics of Piety, which focuses on the women's mosque movement in Egypt, and Amina Jamal's study of Jamaat-e-Islami women in Pakistan directly challenge the argument that women activists are necessarily moderators or proponents of democracy.

Though Coleman does not address these counterexamples, she does concede that some of the political currents pulsing through Islamic feminist movements do not necessarily fall in line with U.S. objectives. In fact, she is quick to acknowledge that many Americans would be less than pleased with the attitudes of some Islamic feminists, which can be anti-Western, anti-globalization, and even sympathetic to militancy. The reality, she argues, is that these very views frequently afford them the credibility they need to work for gender justice in their environments.

An example of one such woman is Massoumeh Ebtekar, Iran's first female vice president. Though Coleman does not hide her disapproval of the Iranian regime, neither does she dismiss the work of Ebtekar, who for the most part defends the regime, rejects the "feminist" label Coleman applies to her, and is extraordinarily critical of U.S. policy toward Iran. While some Iranian feminists consider her work hollow, others believe Ebtekar's power is in her ability to "work under the table" with the legitimacy she traces from these beliefs. Where Ebtekar fits into Coleman's assertions about tempering extremism is unclear, but the attention Paradise pays to her does demonstrate Coleman's balanced approach, in spite of her own strong views, to incorporating a gender lens in foreign policy.

The relevance of Islamic feminism for U.S. foreign policy is more apparent with some of the other work that Coleman profiles, particularly in women's economic development. For example, she lauds the National Solidarity Program (NSP), an Afghan government program that gives local villages the responsibility for their own development. Since 2009, the NSP has increasingly become Washington's program of choice to fund in Afghanistan, and Coleman discusses how its successful gender-based development strategies are a model for other kinds of work the United States can back.

For Coleman, the best way the United States can offer support is by providing technical expertise and financial assistance through local channels, but only when it is demand-driven. The complications resulting from backlash against organizations receiving Western aid, she argues, is a sunk cost, as most women's groups are already accused of following a foreign agenda. And although she advocates that the United States push for women-friendly laws in places where it can -- for example, electoral quotas for women -- she clarifies that "women's empowerment, like many things, cannot be imposed on a country or a culture from the outside." It is important to note that Coleman's agenda does not reek of the "savior rhetoric" prevalent in most Western discussions of gender and foreign policy (and, by extension, war).

Beyond the perils of Western association, Coleman does not analyze the very real obstacles of targeting U.S. aid at gender development (though that might well have required doubling the book's 352 pages). The reality is that women's NGOs and empowerment groups are often donor-driven, and deeply politicized as a result. In some cases, they are manipulated by others, and thus it is quite difficult to ensure that funds are in fact directed to gender-based development. Perhaps the best example of this is the challenge USAID presently faces in disbursing the $7.5 billion in Kerry-Lugar aid to Pakistan. The distributors are working very hard to see some of it directed to women's empowerment organizations and gender-sensitive development projects -- no easy feat. Channeling money is one part of the problem, but ensuring its impact is even more difficult.

It will be interesting to see if Coleman, through her work as director of the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, will flesh out some of the more practical challenges associated with gendering development through U.S. foreign policy, particularly in religious contexts.

Secular Implications

For Coleman, understanding the potential of Islamic feminism to transform societies includes accepting that, at least for now, religion has won in the greater Middle East and secular movements have lost. Thus, some secular feminists tactically choose to adopt, at times with great discomfort, a religious paradigm for their work. And while Coleman recognizes that there are secular feminists that find Islamic feminism simply unpalatable, the implications of Islamic feminism's rise for many secular-feminist activists remain unaddressed in Paradise.

With the growth of faith-based feminisms, as well as the emergence of outright non-liberal, Islamic revivalist women's movements, some scholars are measuring their impact on the women activists that do not fall within these categories, namely secular feminists. For example, sociologist Afiya Zia argues that the growth of Islamic feminism in Pakistan has driven polarization between Islamic and secular feminists, and the emergence of a problematic "good Muslim" and "bad Muslim" dichotomy for women activists. She extends her critique, writing,

The feminism part of Islamic feminism gets subsumed and relegated as a lesser appendage to the more compelling and overarching Islamic phenomena. Islam as a political strategy is increasingly becoming a limited empowering tool for the Islamic feminist reformist project -- instead it has become a legitimate mobilizing strategy almost exclusively for the radical right.

This critical question of whether Islamic feminism's growth delegitimizes secular feminism while empowering the radical right should not negate the progress of the work of Islamic feminists. But the question also deserves more consideration than Paradise gives it.

Paradise possesses neither the depth of the scholarly works named above nor the mainstream reach of mass media. Situated between those poles, it has the rare ability to resonate with both the policymaker and the "enlightened celebrity-activist" (Angelina Jolie has already offered her praise on the book jacket). In the right hands (read: Madame Secretary Clinton), its prescriptions might even materialize in U.S. diplomatic efforts, to the delight of some Islamic feminist activists and maybe to the hesitation of others uncomfortable with Western association.

Foreign policy aside, the book also has the potential to make an impact within the United States. It may not radically transform dominant Western representations of Muslim women, but in the haze of media coverage that will inevitably highlight "boobquake" more than it does the work of Afsaneh Najmabadi, Paradise is a refreshing and intelligent read.

Still there are many, who for differing reasons, may repudiate this work: those who believe that choosing not to confront the patriarchal structures they identify as inherent to Islam precludes the ability to engender true justice for women; those who identify the Islamic feminist movement as constituting baseless "innovations" on Islam, or biddah; and those who doubt its capacity to transform and develop societies unless it more strongly resists universal political and economic power structures. With the exception of the last group, they fail to appreciate what is a powerful, though deeply complicated, means to ensure, in the long term, the rights of women like Sakineh Ashtiani.

arshama- the dignity and intrinsic worth of each human being, whether male or female, as given to them by the Creator is the same and numerous verses in the Koran clearly allude to them. The difference arises in the rights and responsiblities given to each gender in traditional Muslim societies. For instance, under Sharia law, a husband is obligated to provide for his wife even though she may in herself be a wealthy woman and have her own independent means of income and she is not obligated to carry out any domestic work in return for that favour except to respect his conjugal rights. But in practice for relationships to work normally and harmoniously in a loving environement it is necessary for each party to give and take. Rigidity in law or ideology does not lead to a happy situation. A combination of mutual respect, tolerance and love combined with the legal guidelines are more likely to lead to happier relationships and societies. Albeit I am glad you made a distinction that 'Islamic' societies ruled by sharia ......... and did not accuse Islam as a revealed faith or the Koran of not recognising fundamental human rights of women!

rezvan / August 20, 2010 5:44 AM

a very well-written piece. i wonder though- why the name Fatima Mernissi is not mentioned amongst the other Islamic feminists. Did Coleman read Mernissi's work while researching her book? Regarding your observation about "innovation" in Islam- that is an interesting and germane point. But for many of us Muslims- at least for me-the gates of ijtehaad are always open (Schacht). shayma saadat

shayma / August 20, 2010 6:20 AM

An incredibly well-written and thorough analysis. I appreciate that the review of Coleman's book wasn't simply limited to the specifics of what Coleman wrote but delved deeper into other sources to give a greater context. It's refreshing to read an intellectually nuanced discussion about Islamic feminism which is a subject that, in general, falls prey to the most simplistic of stereotypes about both Islam and feminism. Excellent work and I look forward to more by Ms. Khan, clearly a talented journalist.

Naheed / August 20, 2010 8:23 AM

As a modern Iranian woman belonging to the new generation, I do not consider myself a muslim.
Young Iranians who are leading the Green Movement of Iran are asking for a secular government to replace the current Islamic dictatorship. The so-called "Islamic feminism" is thus unnecessary and useless. It only accommodates the needs of a minority group of women.
It is very illogical to think that just because Iran is close to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan, its people share the same beliefs, values, and societal norms as those of the neighboring countries. Iranian women are totally different from women of other muslim countries in terms of their values, lifestyles, and perspective on women's issues.
I consider myself a radical feminist. I do not care how the mullahs or the so-called Islamic feminists interpret verses of the koran pertaining to women. I do not care what the koran says or whether or not women have any rights in Islam. MY goal is to gain the same rights as those that Western feminists are seeking today, no matter what. Why do I need some sort of justification to gain human rights? Why do I have to look for some koranic verses or sayings of Prophet Mo from 1500 years ago to be able to live like a free human being just because I am from Iran!
I want abortion rights, child custody rights; I want freedom. To get any of these rights under "islamic feminism" I will need to prove somehow that they are not against the teachings of Islam. Islam is the priority and main concern in "islamic feminism" NOT WOMEN.

Neda / August 21, 2010 1:08 AM

I agree with Neda, It should be a issue of gender, and not a religious liberation of women. First they force women to give up their freedom, then in order to give back what they took away, they call it "Islamic feminism".

fariba / August 21, 2010 6:06 AM

Arshama nails it precisely.
Anyway, I think everyone should strive for women's rights within any framework that they are comfortable with. It is dangerous to suggest that "islamic feminism" should have a monopoly over the feminist movement in Iran, as some people in the Reformist movement do. It is vital for the future of Iran that women achieve their fundamental rights as fully equal members of society, regardless of whether "Islam as a revealed faith" judges them to be worthy of it or not.

Cy / August 22, 2010 5:50 AM

The tendency to give a further luster to “humanistic” ideals of the past, treat them as a fountain of sibyllic inspirations and enhance them with our contemporary aspirations has been a common exercise on the part of political actors and social reformers in the past two centuries. Today, they have every right to do so, but scholars should shy away from valorizing their methodology, bestowing academic credence to their approaches and giving credibility to anachronism.
Indecently, this tendency had been prevalent among some of the early modern Europe’s political philosophers who grounded their rights-of-man theory in Christian Gospels. Even at the turn of the twentieth century, some Western intellectuals read modern sensitivities and contemporary notions back into the distant past. They dressed up Christian notions and sounded convincing only because they existed at the time no postmodern deconstructionism and no discourse analyses that could readily reveal the phenomenon for what it was: anachronistically projecting the contemporary sentiments back into the past. Today, the knowledge derived from such a discursive deconstruction is inhibitive of reading the past backward from the present, unless one is deliberately obscurantist or willful.
Today, when such a re-reading of Christianity takes place, it can easily be subjected to humorous treatment, if not mockery. In reviewing Andrew Sullivan’s book, "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost it, How to Get it Back," 2007), the secular author Jonathan Raban writes,

… Once upon a time, very long ago, Sir David Frost was capable of being funny. In 1964 or thereabouts…, Frost fronted a spoof commercial for the Church of England on the televi¬sion show…. Arriving at the punch line…, Frost nasally intoned: “And if you want transubstantiation, you can have transubstantiation, and if you don’t want transubstantiation, you needn’t have transubstantiation.” Something of this accommodating spirit informs Sullivan’s religion: what he wants, he takes, and what he doesn’t want, he doesn’t have.

Why would one expect an educated woman in Tehran take such a projection in the “Islamic traditions” seriously, particularly when she can easily note the magnitude of pleadings, stretching and straining has gone into such a rereading? In the early twentieth-first century, paternalism can be perceived even when it is not indented. “Islamism” in all its guises has also been a discursive manufacturing of an identity constructed in the context of an imagined national entity caught up in the vortex of the assumed failure of the consequential, secular ideologies. In its epistemic character, it is the latest version of inverted “Orientalism”.

Reza A. / August 23, 2010 12:15 AM

This is a reach paper on the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign which in contrast with this article argues the campaign has not chosen to work in the framework of Sharia and remained secular. I doubt if the writer has ever read the campaign's statements and documents or only wanted to make unrealistic examples?!

Nicki / August 23, 2010 2:05 AM

The Iranian women's movement is arguably the most powerful reform movement in the world and will not wait for innovative exegesis of holy texts whilst forging ahead with demands for changes to discriminatory laws and violence against women.
Women like Iranian lawyer Shadi Sadr have led the campaign against stoning, exposing the relevant issues: deprivation of human rights, tribal patriarchy and Islamic fundamentalism.

Why do I need an American to decide what is right or wrong for my country when millions of Iranian women are in the midst of the battle field inside Iran and have firsthand knowledge of the ongoing?

We do not need American foreign policy makers formulating our code of conduct. If I want to learn from someone I will listen to Neda who so eloquently described the position of the Iranian women. Why do we have to be super glued to Islam?

In tomorrow's secular Iran people will exercise their freedom of choice and that is exactly where Iran is heading to. Why do we have to be slowed down just because the American foreign policy has failed in the greater Middle East?

Prior to the glorious revolution of 1979 which carries some American finger prints, Iran enjoyed having more women parliamentarians than the United States and women were present in all aspects of life. We can take care of our own.
No foreign interference please. Just tired of you. Isn't 31 years of oppression long enough? Back off.

Thank you Neda. I appreciate the truth.

Niloofar / August 24, 2010 12:35 AM

Ida Lichter,

I see that you conduct joint seminars on Islam with the ultra-neocon, Daniel Pipes, a Guardian of Zion recipient who has advocated bombing Iran, supporting the MEK, and denying the Palestinians statehood: